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Aaron Cosbey

Senior Associate

Aaron Cosbey is a development economist with 25 years of experience in the areas of trade, investment and sustainable development. His work cuts across a number of IISD program areas, with emphasis on climate change and energy, trade and investment law and policy, subsidies and green industrial policy.

He has served on International Trade Canada's Market Access Advisory Group, as the Deputy Minister for International Trade's Academic Advisory Council on Canadian Trade Policy, and as the Canadian Minister for International Trade's Environmental Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade, where he chaired the SAGIT's Working Group on the FTAA. He has been a member of the UN Tripartite Panel of Experts to the Second Preparatory Committee Meeting for Rio +20, the CEC’s Expert Panel on Environmental Impacts of NAFTA, the Advisory Board of the International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy, the Review Board of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, and the Expert Group on Clean Energy and the Multilateral Trading System of ICTSD’s E15 initiative. He has acted as a consultant to a wide variety of governments and institutions on the issues of trade, investment and sustainable development, including the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Commonwealth Secretariat, Environment Canada, European University Institute, the Inter-American Development Bank, Canada’s National Round Table on Environment and Economy, the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, UNCTAD, UNDP, UNEP, UNFCCC and the World Bank.

The Coming EVolution of Road TransportThe transition to electric vehicles will cripple long-entrenched markets and create new ones; it will challenge economic and social systems to adapt at uncomfortable speeds and will be accompanied by significant shifts in geopolitical power and relations.

Can Investor-State Dispute Settlement Be Good for the Environment?Renewable energy investors have been using investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms to fight cuts to subsidies in Europe, but this short-term gain may hinder states in their broader pursuit of environmental objectives like addressing climate change and pollution.